Sustaining Traditions-Digital Memories

Kelly Church, Sustaining Traditions-Digital Memories, 2018, black ash, sweetgrass, rit, copper, vial EAB, flashdrive, 9 ¹⁄₂ × 4 ¹⁄₂ in. (24.1 × 11.4 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Decorative Arts and Crafts Endowment, 2020.49A-B, © 2018, Kelly Church

Artwork Details

Title: Sustaining Traditions-Digital Memories
Artist: Kelly Church
Date: 2018
Location: Not on view
Dimensions: 9 ¹⁄₂ × 4 ¹⁄₂ in. (24.1 × 11.4 cm)
Copyright: © 2018, Kelly Church
Credit Line: Museum purchase through the Decorative Arts and Crafts Endowment
Mediums: ash
copper
Mediums Description: black ash, sweetgrass, rit, copper, vial EAB, flashdrive
Classifications: Media Arts
Highlights: Native and Indigenous Art
Subjects: Allegory — other — memory
Object Number: 2020.49A-B
Linked Open Data: https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/2020.49A-B

Artwork Description

Kelly Church is from an unbroken line of Anishinaabe basket makers. Along with her family, she harvests and processes the materials for her work. Sustaining Traditions—Digital Memories is a basket that carries the past, present, and future teachings of this art. Woven with black ash and Michigan-sourced copper, the radiant green color alludes to the emerald ash borer, an invasive beetle that has decimated black ash trees in over twenty-three US states and two Canadian provinces. When opened, the basket reveals a sealed glass vial with the carcass of the beetle. It also contains a computer flash drive with directions on how to harvest and prepare black ash for weaving, in case those traditions are lost without access to healthy trees.

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